Beketov

Phil! My greatest supporter! Time to bring back the top leader award in your honour.

Welcome to the VHL, VanCanWin! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the "How to Create a Player" topic. That topic will offer you detailed information about how to use the VHL Portal to create your player and get you started. We also highly recommend joining the VHL Discord where there is a channel dedicated to helping new members with any questions that they may have about the league or improving their player. Once your player is made VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

@Bushito trying to make things more interesting for me going into free agency. I suspect there will be some major talks coming my way soon.

Welcome to the VHL, Saelven88! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the "How to Create a Player" topic. That topic will offer you detailed information about how to use the VHL Portal to create your player and get you started. We also highly recommend joining the VHL Discord where there is a channel dedicated to helping new members with any questions that they may have about the league or improving their player. Once your player is made VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

Welcome to the VHL, DoktorFunk! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the "How to Create a Player" topic. That topic will offer you detailed information about how to use the VHL Portal to create your player and get you started. We also highly recommend joining the VHL Discord where there is a channel dedicated to helping new members with any questions that they may have about the league or improving their player. Once your player is made VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

Thanks. Wanna give me a tag when you do so I can adjust my claim?

Welcome to the VHL, Owen Battler! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the "How to Create a Player" topic. That topic will offer you detailed information about how to use the VHL Portal to create your player and get you started. We also highly recommend joining the VHL Discord where there is a channel dedicated to helping new members with any questions that they may have about the league or improving their player. Once your player is made VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

Welcome to the VHL, Dinobro! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the "How to Create a Player" topic. That topic will offer you detailed information about how to use the VHL Portal to create your player and get you started. We also highly recommend joining the VHL Discord where there is a channel dedicated to helping new members with any questions that they may have about the league or improving their player. Once your player is made VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

Welcome to the VHL, CallmeSCOOBY44! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the "How to Create a Player" topic. That topic will offer you detailed information about how to use the VHL Portal to create your player and get you started. We also highly recommend joining the VHL Discord where there is a channel dedicated to helping new members with any questions that they may have about the league or improving their player. Once your player is made VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

Welcome to the VHL, dbeck896! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the "How to Create a Player" topic. That topic will offer you detailed information about how to use the VHL Portal to create your player and get you started. We also highly recommend joining the VHL Discord where there is a channel dedicated to helping new members with any questions that they may have about the league or improving their player. Once your player is made VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

Welcome to the VHL, Valgrim! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the "How to Create a Player" topic. That topic will offer you detailed information about how to use the VHL Portal to create your player and get you started. We also highly recommend joining the VHL Discord where there is a channel dedicated to helping new members with any questions that they may have about the league or improving their player. Once your player is made VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

Welcome to the VHL, Jean-Luc Zoidberg! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the "How to Create a Player" topic. That topic will offer you detailed information about how to use the VHL Portal to create your player and get you started. We also highly recommend joining the VHL Discord where there is a channel dedicated to helping new members with any questions that they may have about the league or improving their player. Once your player is made VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

Welcome to the VHL, p3n1x! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the "How to Create a Player" topic. That topic will offer you detailed information about how to use the VHL Portal to create your player and get you started. We also highly recommend joining the VHL Discord where there is a channel dedicated to helping new members with any questions that they may have about the league or improving their player. Once your player is made VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

I definitely do not remember getting 5 questions wrong but oh well, I’ll take it. I assume this takes into account the 2 weeks I handled it as having correct answers?

Welcome to the VHL, NastyNick! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the "How to Create a Player" topic. That topic will offer you detailed information about how to use the VHL Portal to create your player and get you started. We also highly recommend joining the VHL Discord where there is a channel dedicated to helping new members with any questions that they may have about the league or improving their player. Once your player is made VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

@Quik had to play his backup during a playoff game for the same thing, precedent is there. It’s a GM’s job to keep on top of it.

SB = Shots Against = Shitty Team Based on the stats we have and the precedent of the award hits mean more than SB. Even if we want to pretend SB is important I’d say 241 hits make up for 6 shots blocked.

Arthur

If we don’t rub his nose in it he’ll never learn.

I just enjoy that you were so bad with this rule that it got named after you even though it had existed for 60+ seasons without a name.

For this upcoming season the cap will be $40 million but with an extra tiered caveat that hasn’t normally been present. What this means is that you have $40 million total but no more than $28 million can be used for prime contracts. This should allow teams to get the influx of new rookies under contract much easier without having the ability to simply sign an impossibly strong team of veterans. That cap, however, does not apply directly to the HC Davos Dynamo. Because they broke the Louth rule last season and only started their backup 7 games some punishment is required. The reason I'm doing it with this is because the punishment is a $500k cap hit (off the total, does not affect prime contracts) as well as having to play their backup 9 games in S66 instead of the usual 8. EDIT: As a means of helping to ensure teams are under the salary cap in Season 66, @Beketov and I have decided to allow teams over either the Prime, or Total, Salary Cap a single, penalty-free, buy-out. What this means is that, if your team is above either cap, you may buy a single player out, without penalty, in order to comply with both caps. If you are over the Total Cap, but not the Prime Cap, you may not buy out a Prime Contract. If you are not over either Cap, your team is not eligible for a free buy-out.

I have corrected this and deleted the other account. Carry on.

Okay so the last word of the title doesn’t fit great but I wanted the alliteration. Anyway, I was arguing with Beaviss about this the other day and figured I might as well get some TPE for the digging I did so why not write something up about it? Beaviss was saying he believes that Louth should take home the Boulet this season. I said with a young(ish) award committee it’s possible but personally I completely disagreed. Why you might ask? Well, here is Louth’s stat line: Beau Louth (VAN) - 53G, 53A, 106P, +24, 39PIM, 42HIT, 54SB, 13GWG, 3009 FO (60.72% won) Now obviously his points are pretty solid and his SB is relatively high for a forward but there’s 1 glaring issue there: hits. Only 42 of them to be specific. Obviously no, hits are not everything and SB is important. However in STHS Shots Blocked tend to come purely from being on a bad team that faces a lot of shots. Like Vancouver for example who failed to make the playoffs. For this reason hits is usually highly considered because it’s a very individual stat even if slightly misleading. If you take a scroll through past Boulet winners you would actually find that if Louth wins he has less than half of the currently lowest hit total on that list which is currently 88. Now that’s obviously a problem but could be okay if his shots blocked were something phenomenal but they are kinda middle of the road for Boulet winners. Plenty have been higher, plenty have been lower. So, I titled this bias for an obvious reason. Take a look for comparison at Thompson’s numbers: Matt Thompson (SEA) - 52G, 49A, 101P, +48, 100PIM, 283HIT, 48SB, 11GWG That is only 6 SB less than Louth, despite playing on the Victory Cup winning team rather than a lottery team. Meanwhile the hit total is 241 higher. So 5 points less, 6 SB less, 241 hits more. With historical precedent of hits being important that doesn’t sound like a question mark much. Want another less bias option though? I can provide that: Kronos Bailey (HSK) - 37G, 50A, 87P, +35, 121PIM, 346HIT, 21SB, 6GWG, 868 FO (53.34% won) Now obviously Bailey has quite a bit lower on the points and SB department but 304 more hits than Louth. That is a number than IMO cannot be ignored when hits as historically been the most important factor for Boulet winners. Ultimately the Boulet is for top 2-way forward, not top forward. Louth May have more points but his defensive numbers don’t make sense. His hits are abysmal and his SB lead leaves nothing to be desired when you consider the teams involved. Will this make any difference? I doubt it, I just wanted something to write about. But should Louth be considered a top 2-way contender with less than half of the lowest hit total ever to win? I think most definitely not.

I think in years where parity is low star power obviously does a lot more. However right now league parity is very high. So even with Seattle and Riga winning in the regular season it doesn’t guarantee much come the playoffs because teams like Helsinki and Toronto aren’t bad teams, just slightly worse. The playoffs have always had a bit of a coin flip aspect to them so that’s just gonna get more and more random as team quality gets closer together. Just like the NHL, especially this season, the better team on paper won’t always win. I think we’ve all just gotten used to a lot of seasons without much parity so the upsets were less common. Also Toronto has both @tfong and @Green. That’s the ultimate playoff luck.